King Yuan Electronics Co (KYEC, 京元電子) yesterday said that its operations in Miaoli County are continuing, despite COVID-19 cluster infections at its factories there, as it has reallocated its labor force after about 2,100 of its migrant workers were quarantined on Friday last week.
While production volume has fallen, factories are still operational, as local workers have been reassigned to fill the gaps, the IC testing and packaging service firm said.
The company said that output and revenue this month would each drop by 30 to 35 percent, more than its previous estimate of 4 to 6 percent.
Photo: CNA
KYEC’s revenue last month grew 10.72 percent year-on-year to NT$2.86 billion (US$103.2 million), while cumulative revenue in the first five months of this year expanded 8.87 percent to NT$12.17 billion.
The company’s major clients include Intel Corp, Qualcomm Inc, MediaTek Inc (聯發科), Nvidia Corp, STMicroelectronics NV, Xilinx Inc, Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠科技), Will Semiconductor Co (韋爾半導體), Renesas Electronics Corp, Robert Bosch GmbH, Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) and Murata Manufacturing Co, company data showed.
KYEC said that it has not lost any clients or orders.
The company employs more than 7,000 people, about 2,100 of whom are migrant workers. The firm on Friday last week suspended work by migrant workers at its factories for 14 days, after a COVID-19 cluster was reported at its factories in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南).
As of Sunday, more than 130 KYEC factory workers had been confirmed to have COVID-19, 65 of whom were new infections reported that day, the Miaoli County Government said.
Fifty-five of the new cases were migrant workers, while the other 10 were Taiwanese, it said.
The Central Epidemic Command Center reported that 206 people, including 180 migrant workers, were on Sunday confirmed to have COVID-19 at three different technology companies in Miaoli County.
The center said that all migrant workers at the three companies must be quarantined for 14 days at government designated centers or at home, depending on their exposure risk, adding that they would all continue to receive full pay.
KYEC resumed operations on Sunday night at lower-than-normal production volume, acting spokesman Aaron Chang (張垂欽) said.
“Once migrant workers return to production lines in two weeks, the company will speed up production to make up for the losses,” he said. “The company sees no major impact on its annual finances.”
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS